Aspects of ductile fracture and adaptive mesh refinement in damaged elasto-plastic materials

Numerical simulation of elasto-plastic problems involving multi-fracturing materials requires a reliable failure prediction technique and a robust solution algorithm. This work approaches ductile fracture by means of continuum damage mechanics, from which two new failure criteria based on coupled and uncoupled damage analysis are derived. A two-parameter stress update algorithm for damaged materials based on a Newton{ Raphson iterative procedure is presented. A posteriori error estimators using ductile failure concepts are also discussed.